Matthew Hawk (Earth-616)
Matthew Leibowitz, The No-Gun Kid | Identity = Secret | Affiliation = (Arizona ), Partner of the She-Hulk; , , ; Ally of the Rawhide Kid and Kid Colt, formerly | Relatives = Nancy Hawk (wife, deceased), Eve Hawk (daughter, deceased) | Universe = Earth-616 | BaseOfOperations = | Gender = Male | Height = 5'9" | Weight = 160 lbs (64 kg) | Eyes = Blue | Hair = Brown | UnusualFeatures = | Citizenship = American | MaritalStatus = Widowed | Occupation = Bounty Hunter, lawyer, gunfighter, vigilante | Education = | Origin = Human | PlaceOfBirth = Boston, Massachusetts | Creators = Stan Lee; Jack Kirby | First = Two-Gun Kid #60 | Death = Marvels Project #1 | HistoryText = 1870s Matt Hawk (born Matthew Leibowitz) was a Harvard-educated Boston lawyer who settled in 1870s Tombstone, Texas, after the Civil War. Shortly after arriving in Tombstone, Matt was attacked by a gang of toughs led by Clem Carter. Clem's sister, schoolteacher Nancy Carter, intervened and convinced them to leave Hawk alone, befriending Matt in the process. Later, Matt saw Clem's gang harassing an elderly man and came to the old man's aid. The old man turned out to be legendary gunfighter Ben Dancer, who scared off Clem's gang by drawing his gun. Grateful for Matt's attempts to help him, Dancer volunteered to train Matt as a fighter. Matt practiced until he became Dancer's superior as a gunfighter, and also trained intensively in horsemanship, unarmed combat and the use of the lasso; however, Dancer encouraged Matt to conceal his newfound talents. If Matt's marksmanship skills were common knowledge, thugs like the Carter gang would harass him in hopes of making a name for themselves, the same way they had harassed Dancer. To avoid this, Matt created a masked identity for himself as the Two-Gun Kid, an identity he would assume whenever he found it necessary to use his fighting skills. When Clem Carter's gang ambushed Dancer in an attempt to kill him, Matt went into action as the Two-Gun Kid for the first time and defeated the Carter gang alongside Dancer. Dancer moved out East to live a quieter life while his pupil lived a daring double life in Tombstone as lawyer Matt Hawk and the Two-Gun Kid. As Two-Gun, Matt fought a wide array of criminals, ranging from common gunfighters to exotic costumed criminals like the Hurricane and the Rattler. Modern Era An insightful thinker, a skilled fighter and a phenomenally accurate sharpshooter, the Two-Gun Kid became one of the most celebrated of the old western heroes. When the hero team Avengers battled the time-travelling villain, Kang, in the 1870s, Two-Gun was intrigued by the team, struck up a fast friendship with longtime Avengers member Hawkeye and allied himself with the Avengers against Kang, accompanying them back to the 20th century once their battle was won. Two-Gun offered his services to the Avengers and was awarded reserve membership in absentia while he explored 20th century America with Hawkeye as his guide. Two-Gun became increasingly homesick, though, and later returned to his own era. Return to the Old West Since then, the Avengers made a second visit to Two-Gun's time period, during which he helped rescue the Avenger Mockingbird from the vigilante Phantom Rider (Lincoln Slade). He declined an offer to return to the 20th century and rejoin the Avengers though he didn't rule it out as a future possibility. Years later, Matt's life seemed to have wound down. He married Nancy and had a daughter, but mother and child both died, as did his best friend Boom Boom Brown. These deaths, which might have been prevented with the modern medicine Two-Gun saw in the future, made Matt cynical and fatalistic, an attitude reinforced by historical records of his own death that he had seen in the future. When the dates of his "deaths" as both Matt Hawk and the Two-Gun Kid drew near, he faked his death as Matt Hawk so he could devote his Two-Gun Kid identity to foiling an international conspiracy aimed at controlling the world's economy. The Kid and several allies were seemingly killed in the conclusion of that conflict when the Two-Gun Kid destroyed a massive oil deposit the conspiracy had hoped to exploit. In actuality, the Kid and his allies survived the explosion, and for a time, they rode together as a band of adventurers called The Sunset Riders. The Sunset Riders soon drifted apart, though, and Matt decided to begin life anew. He resumed his legal career under the alias Clay Harder, taking his new name from a fictional Two-Gun Kid depicted in the dime novels of his day. He was determined to remain retired from the realms of gunfighting and adventuring, but when some of his old gunfighter peers approached him to help protect the town of Wonderment, Montana from corrupt business interests trying to wipe out the community, Matt donned the mask of The Two-Gun Kid once more. Alongside Gunhawk, Caleb Hammer, Reno Jones, Kid Colt, the Outlaw Kid and the Rawhide Kid, Two-Gun Kid rode into action one last time. Wonderment was saved, but Gunhawk, Kid Colt, The Outlaw Kid and The Two-Gun Kid were ultimately killed in the conflict. Return to the Modern Era It was later revealed that She-Hulk, after dealing with the Time Variance Authority, was given the chance to free one time traveler out of continuity limbo. She chose the Two-Gun Kid as he was a former Avenger. It was clarified that his heroic nature prevented him from being returned to his own time, as he would inevitably try to fix things. In present time, he learned that his previous modern-day encounters with the Avengers had resulted in his law license and other paraphernalia being kept in an Avengers safety-deposit box. Once he learned that She-Hulk worked for a law-firm, Goodman, Lieber, Kurtzberg & Holliway, he tried to become her colleague. He soon came to the conclusion, however, that he would never be able to catch up on current laws and became a bounty hunter instead. His first catch being Bushwacker. For a time he roomed with the Awesome Android, who had reformed and was also an employee for the same law firm. He also used a twin-engine jet cycle to fly around the city. This cycle was donated to him by Hawkeye, an old friend who was aware of his past time-traveling difficulties and the potential for even more. During the Civil War event, Matt Hawk became a licensed bounty hunter and worked alongside She-Hulk, helping her to apprehend super-villains. For example, he took down the rampaging villain Ruby Thursday with a stun-rifle. He was later sent to Arizona to lead the Desert Stars team of the 50-State Initiative. He was injured when team member the Blacksmith was revealed to be a Skrull and attacked the team. After that he recovered and with Komodo, Supermax and Johnny Cool aided the Heavy Hitters to protect a dam from an attack by super-powered villain Zzzax. Death At some point in the future, Matt Hawk would became too old to continue crime fighting and returned to the past to a period analogous with the amount of time he had aged. Finding that his old life in Texas and Boston, including his old family and friends were long gone, and with his knowledge of the future, the aging Matt Hawk relocated to New York in the hopes of surviving long enough to see the dawn of the golden age of heroes. By 1938, the elderly Hawk was sequestered to a hospital where he was under the care of Dr. Thomas Halloway. Hawk, knowing that Halloway was destined to become the hero known as the Angel, spent his final days telling Halloway of the age of heroes ahead. Halloway believed that Hawk was merely an old man suffering from a creative form of dementia. Soon after, Hawk died of old age, leaving Halloway with a parting gift: His old mask and two revolvers. Matthew Hawk's soul ended up in Hell because, in his own eyes, despite being a hero he had been a killer. Since the inhabitants of Hell are stuck in the lives they lived, Matt was returned to his appearance from his prime, which allowed him to spend his days killing demons as the Two-Gun Kid. Legacy Well before and after his jaunts through time, Matt Hawk's exploits during the 1870's inspired many, and he became a well known historical figure. He particularly inspired Clint Barton, who took up the Two-Gun Kid's style of heroism when he became Hawkeye. Following his death in 1938, Hawk's stories of the future inspired Thomas Halloway to become the costumed hero known as the Angel. Halloway wore Hawk's mask and used his two revolvers to honor the hero whose exploits he read as a child. Halloway was also inspired to write about the early days of World War II and the rise of super-humans during the war. The story dubbed "The Marvels Project" was passed down along with Hawk's guns and mask to Halloway's grandson Jason, by Captain America, and Hawk's younger self who was still living in the modern era. Two-Gun Kid was also remembered as the main character of B-movie The Two-Gun Kid meets Dracula, starring Martin Preston. | Powers = | Abilities = He is one of the fastest and best gunfighters of his time, rivaled only by Kid Colt and the Rawhide Kid. He is also an excellent hand-to-hand combatant, a superb horseback rider, and a master of the lasso. | Strength = He possesses the normal human strength of a man of his age, height, and build who engages in intensive regular exercise. | Weaknesses = | Equipment = As a bounty hunter in the modern era, Two-Gun sometimes uses homing darts to follow his quarry. | Transportation = In the past he road the horse Thunder. In the present, he rides a twin-engine jet cycle given to him by Hawkeye which he has affectionately named Lightning. | Weapons = Two pistols and a lariat. During his time with the Sunset Riders it was shown that the Two-Gun Kid had brought a cache of modern weapons back with him from the future. These weapons included, but were not necessarily limited to: automatic firearms such as uzi's, a Rocket launcher, and plastic explosives. | Notes = * In many of his stories, including his first appearance, Two-Gun Kid is said to have settled in Tombstone, Texas but later stories frequently have him located in Tombstone, Arizona. This usually seems to be a writing mistake rather than having actual story reasons but it is possible that he relocated at some point. * Matt Hawk's timeline appears to have been split when She-Hulk freed him from Time Variance Authority's custody. After being freed, Hawk mentions Nancy Carter, Boom Boom Brown, and his horse Thunder as being alive when they had previously been established to have all died some time after he was returned to the past the first time. This would imply that Hawk had been pulled from before those deaths occurred, possibly from before he and Nancy Carter were married, as he refers to her as "Ms. Carter." This would mean that one version of Hawk would live in the present, becoming a bounty hunter, joining the Initiative, and growing old before being sent back to the past and dying a New York hospital bed in 1938 while another version would stay in the past, marry Nancy Carter, form the Sunset Riders, and die defending Wonderment, MT in 1885 . The events of Blaze of Glory are still canon as Kid Colt talks of them having happened when he is found alive in the modern day. Of course, it is also possible that the TVA just altered Hawk's memories. | Wikipedia = Two-Gun Kid | Trivia = * This character appears in TSR, Inc.'s RPG adventure The Weird, Weird West, and is a playable character at certain points of the plot. In the plot, he had forged an alliance with Kid Colt, Rawhide Kid and the Phantom Rider due to a time crisis that had eventually left Dodge City of 1871 raided by a Tyrannosaurus Rex. The western heroes had met time traveler Albert Einstein and decided to help him find a solution to the crisis, protecting him from "Faro" John Hobart's desperado gang while he worked. An initial fight with the player characters time travelling heroes eventually led to an alliance where the western heroes helped them to forge an alliance with three warring generals (Alexander the Great, Napoléon Bonaparte and Genghis Khan) against a common alien threat. * While in Hell following his death, Two-Gun Kid admitted that if he could take back his choices, he would've liked to be a carpenter. | Links = General references * * * }} Category:Equestrianism Category:Jewish Characters Category:Gunfighters Category:Destiny War Participants Category:Harvard University Student